I’m always looking for ways to support my children’s creative side and yesterday my daughter made me an organic and non-GMO strawberry smoothie and brought me a bill for $.50 and then it hit me! We have been so influenced by the slavery mentality throughout generations by our parents, grandparents and possibly great grandparents that I didn’t even realize that we reinforce slavery each time we pay allowance or reward our children for completing their chores. I don’t know about you, but my kids fuss and complain when the time comes to get these tasks complete. Yes we should teach our children to clean and be responsible, but that only instills in them the monetary exchange for work that they don’t enjoy doing. Isn’t that the life for most of us these days? Doing work that we don’t enjoy just because we have to make a paycheck for whatever reason. I find that when monetarily rewarding our children shouldn’t we reinforce it with some they DO enjoy doing? I didn’t hesitate to pay my bill because my daughter makes awesome smoothies and she is raising money for a good cause. Try this with your child, it may be paying them for a drawing or putting on a performance or whipping up a good meal or snack. We will start at home and see where this goes! Seems to me this is the beginning of creating an entrepreneur instead of an employee. Any thoughts??!!

I found myself very unhappy in 2012, I remained grateful and positive about the things the Universe were doing for me in my life…but I was still very unsettled. I finally landed a lucrative career and thought I would be content for a while, I had a nice and reliable vehicle, was running a successful part time independent contracting business and I was in the financial position to purchase a home. However I watched my life become very boring and redundant. I realized it would be easy to become comfortable with working like a slave just to pay bills and be broke the same day I get paid. Not to mention I would be too distracted from my family, hobbies and personal goals. I wanted to be able to enjoy life I wanted to make money and actually be able to do something for myself and family with my money. I began to see my career for what it really was and I was not comfortable with working for Child Protective Services everyday, I wanted to be on the preventative and therapeutic side, not the consequential side and be responsible for removing children away from their families. I met wonderful people and was being primed as a supervisor after my first year, but my position was taking a toll on my emotions and I was drinking heavily and my patience was really short and I wasn’t myself. I began to pray and just followed what the Universe was telling me, I was no longer in control I put it all in the hands of the Creator and allowed myself to be controlled by a higher power. I began teach my children about the purpose of saving money and in doing so I had to practice what I was preaching and save myself. Can’t teach a child to do something if they don’t see you doing it yourself. According to Suze Orman every time we spend our bills, dollar bills $5 dollar bills $10 bills any time we spend our bills and we get change back if we were to save all of that change for one year we will have $4000. Now I honestly can say that we didn’t stay consistent for the entire year, but I can tell you we had a couple hundred dollars saved up and it helped us purchase gas to drive across the country in 2013. Now with new goals ahead of us we have something in mind that we want to purchase. Therefore, we are at it again! Next time you have a pocket full of change, stay mindful of what you do with it. United we stand!
Peace & Love
Ono

Not everyone is gifted with the ability to have children. Trust me if you have children it is for a more divine reason than you realize. Not every man and woman that has unprotected sex produces children. What bothers me is when parents think their kids were born and owe them something. Children are born because God has a purpose for their lives and saw fit for you to be the conceiver and bearer of the child. Many of us don’t realize our purpose enough to raise children into their purpose. It is important for us to learn more about what we enjoy doing and what makes us happy so we can do more of those things and pass it on to our children. I remember one time after a holiday my step Mom caught me giving a piece of ham to a stray dog and I got yelled at. She also used to offer us kids up to the drunks asking her for change in the street as a joke. As a child this is most confusing especially if God wanted you on this Earth to be a giver. So please parents stop trying to live your life through your children, you never know how the little things will slow your child down from living in their purpose. Let them explore and find other activities for them to participate in other than things you did as a child. My children like soccer, tennis and swimming and a variety of other things. None of these things I wanted to do daily as a child, but because I know I have them and it is my duty to guide them into happiness I will do research and find someone who is into those activities that can help. Think about your kids talents and things they enjoy doing and get them to doing more of it. Not only will it increase their happiness, but it may turn into their purpose which can turn into their success.

I love when I see new parents teaching their children fundamental learning in a fun way. I just saw a young mom walking down the sidewalk with her infant and each step they took she counted! There are so many nice subtle ways to teach your children their shapes, numbers and letters. I remember when my children were little the ABC song was their bedtime song, start off with just the letters then add a word after each letter once they begin to master the alphabet. It helps a lot once they start school and learn sight words and the sound of letters which in turn will make reading a lot easier to learn. Start teaching your child while they are in your belly! Now that my children are older and I get busy sometimes, I like the comfort of knowing that I can give them the laptop and click on YouTube and find fun educational tools such as these! Also try science experiments for children and cooking for kids, my children love to watch these